London, 6 September 2017

Newsroom

EY and Guardtime announce the world’s first blockchain platform for the marine insurance sector. The platform launches in collaboration with A.P. Møller-Maersk A/S, ACORD, Microsoft, MS Amlin, Willis Towers Watson and XL Catlin and after a 20-week proof of concept.

The blockchain platform — built on Microsoft Azure global cloud technology — is positioned to provide significant value to the insurance industry and is planned to be implemented from 2018 onward. The first of its kind in the insurance industry, the platform’s initial phased rollout will involve deploying the benefits of blockchain for end-to-end use across the marine industry.

The global blockchain platform connects clients, brokers, insurers and third parties to distributed common ledgers that capture data about identities, risk and exposures, and integrates this information with insurance contracts. The platform’s capabilities include the ability to create and maintain asset data from multiple parties; to link data to policy contracts; to receive and act upon information that results in a pricing or a business process change; to connect client assets, transactions and payments; and to capture and validate up-to-date first notification or loss data.

Shaun Crawford, EY Global Insurance Leader, says:

“Blockchain’s potential to transform the insurance ecosystem has always been clear. What we have done is to move forward from potential to reality. This solution is the first to apply blockchain’s transparency, security and standardization to marine insurance and is ready for commercial use. We look forward to deploying this technology across the marine insurance industry and are exploring how these findings and insights will be applied to other specialty insurance markets and beyond.”

The blockchain platform supports the marine insurance industry to address the challenges of its complex international ecosystem involving multiple parties, long paper chains and duplication, high transaction volumes and significant levels of reconciliation — all potentially preventing transparency, compliance and accurate exposure management. The blockchain platform connects disparate data and processes to address and mitigate the issues associated with reconciliation and error applicability.

“It is a priority for us to leverage technology to streamline and automate our interaction with the insurance market. Insurance transactions are currently far too tedious and frictional. The distance between risk and capital is simply too far. Blockchain technology has the potential to facilitate the desired development that is long overdue.”

Insurers can use this blockchain platform to improve their capital and gain efficiencies, with increased transparency and reduced manual data entry or reconciliation and administration costs.

Mike Gault, Guardtime CEO, says:

“The KSI® blockchain stack is a proven technology for securing the physical, software and information supply chains that enterprises rely on for the integrity of their businesses. We are thrilled to be collaborating with EY to expand the number of real-world customer problems solved with our technology. Guardtime’s technology and deep domain knowledge from EY represents a formidable combination for customers looking to solve hard problems with blockchain technology.”

Blockchain set to transform the insurance sector, say industry participants

Bill Pieroni, President and CEO at the global insurance industry organization, ACORD, says:

“We are excited to collaborate with EY on this innovative blockchain solution for the insurance industry. This first-of-a-kind effort has the potential to dramatically reduce time, cost and risk across the entire insurance value chain. ACORD looks forward to working together to help our members realize the benefits associated with blockchain.”

Mark Russinovich, Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Azure, says:

“Microsoft believes blockchain is a transformational technology with the ability to significantly reduce the friction of doing business, especially streamlining business processes shared across multiple organizations. Marine insurance is a prime example of a complex business process that can be optimized with blockchain. We remain committed to bringing blockchain to the enterprise, and are glad to work with EY, Guardtime and other industry experts to develop and deploy blockchain solutions powered by Microsoft Azure.”

”We started this work in 2016 with an intuitive belief that blockchain technology could transform the marine insurance market. We are excited that we are already in a position to test a practical platform through which we will be transacting business in a completely new way. It’s part of our MS Amlin EDGE program to seize advantage through tactical and more radical opportunities for digital disruption and business model innovation.”

Simon Gaffney, Chief Data Officer, Willis Towers Watson, says:

“Redesigning the insurance process is critical for the evolution of our industry. This initiative has the potential to streamline and simplify insurance transaction efficiency using new technologies, an essential development for the insurance industry.”

Martin Henley, Chief Information Officer, XL Catlin, says:

”This successful proof of concept is ground breaking. While the insurance industry has been looking at blockchain as a way to disrupt some of its processes and become more efficient, this will lead to ‘real-life’ innovations. We will learn from those and apply them to other insurance segments — and ultimately better delivery for our clients across the industry.”

EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and in economies the world over. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In doing so, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities.

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.

This news release has been issued by EYGM Limited, a member of the global EY organization that also does not provide any services to clients.

About EY’s Global Insurance Sector

Insurers must increasingly address more complex and converging regulatory issues that challenge their risk management approaches, operations and financial reporting practices. EY’s Global Insurance Sector brings together a worldwide team of professionals to help you succeed — a team with deep technical experience in providing assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The Sector team works to anticipate market trends, identify their implications and develop points of view on relevant sector issues. Ultimately, this team enables us to help you meet your goals and compete more effectively.

About Guardtime

Guardtime is the world’s largest blockchain company by revenue, headcount and production customer deployments. The company was founded in 2007 in Estonia and has since expanded to Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and the Americas. Guardtime federal was established in 2014 to exclusively support the cyber security and related security requirements for the US Defense Department, the US Intelligence Community, other US government departments and industrial communities supporting these US state capabilities. Guardtime Federal conforms to the federal regulations to assure government customers of compliance with US security objectives. This guarantees issues such as FOCI have been successfully mitigated ensuring protection against inappropriate disclosure of export controlled, OPSEC sensitive and classified information. The Guardtime technology stack is optimized for solving problems in enterprise with solutions developed for GDPR compliance as services, physical anti-counterfeit, digital content management, critical infrastructure protection and healthcare interoperability.

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EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.